


The Things We Love

by AnonBlueberry (hippydeath)



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Angst, Anxiety, Drift Compatibility, Established Relationship, M/M, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28386579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippydeath/pseuds/AnonBlueberry
Summary: They've weathered their first Drift, their first fights, and the first steps of their relationship, but a creature that reminds Jaskier far too much of a childhood he'd rather forget puts all of it at risk.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47
Collections: Geraskier Holiday Exchange 2020





	The Things We Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kuinshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuinshi/gifts).



> Thank you for giving me the chance to blend two of my favourite fandoms into one chaotic mess!

Jaskier  _ knows _ Geralt in the Drift. That's the beauty of it; outside it, he's quiet and taciturn and even if Jaskier knows what kind of man he is, he doesn't show it because he doesn't know how to.

In the Drift, he doesn't have to show it with words, because Jaskier can just see it.

He can see the ache in his heart where all his previous drift partners have wrenched a tiny piece away from him and he can see the quiet guilt for how he failed Eskel, the disappointment at Yen's leaving, the itching wounds where all the partners they tried to force on him chipped away until Jaskier arrived and was the balm to that pain.

He sees the quiet love Geralt has for his horse, for his Jaeger, for the crews who look after her and his daughter in all but blood who works on the Wolf's tech team. He sees the bright and burning love the man has for him, something never visible in the outside world, even though, these days, Jaskier would know it without the Drift.

Geralt doesn't need the Drift to know Jaskier. The whole base knows Jaskier because he never shuts his mouth, and wears his heart on his sleeve for everyone to pick at and borrow and crush.

But Geralt sees in the Drift the lost boy whose family didn't want him, no matter what he did, whose family wanted him to succeed but only in the ways that they chose.

He hears the melodies that float through Jaskier's head day and night, and he sees the horrors that Jaskier desperately tries to forget and ignore, because no one grows up on the Kerack coast without knowing the terrors that come from the sea.

The drift is an affirmation for the both of them.

Of love. Of acceptance. Of healing.

"You two quite done chasing rabbits?" Lambert's brash voice comes over the comms, and Geralt laughs.

"Not all of us fall down holes every time we sync."

"Just reminiscing darling." Jaskier drawls, "Drift is holding steady according to my readouts. "

"Yeah yeah. Get on with it love birds, we've got three more pairs to test today."

They run through sync tests and mobility tests, stretching their bond and putting their Jaeger through its paces. Jaskier fiddles with readouts and argues with Lambert over some of them. It's nice and normal.

Too normal.

Alarms start sounding over their comm lines and Lambert swears.

Then Vesemir's voice comes over. "You're heading east to meet a Siren type that just pulled itself out of the river, Witch Eyes will join you as soon as they're up and running, be careful because this thing is big."

"Got it." Jaskier confirms as he finds it on their scanners, and he and Geralt take a moment to breathe and find that place where movement in unison comes, and then they're off.

Their back up is maybe half an hour behind them when they finally see the creature on visuals, rather than just as scanner readings. It's huge, and beautiful in the way that Siren types usually are; elegant limbs and tentacles allowing it to move with a completely inhuman grace, even across the uneven ground they're on. Its skin is a midnight blue mottled with browns and greens, and its face is set with three almost white eyes; pale blue irises are barely visible in the daylight. 

It doesn't seem to have noticed their approach yet, and they stop to watch it for a few minutes, to give Essi and Pris a chance to catch up, and to see how it moves, what it seems to be doing.

It spots them though, sooner than they had hoped, and lets out an awful, piercing, discordant shriek. Both of them slam on the audio jammers that were installed specifically for dealing with this type of creature, and bring the Jaeger into a fighting stance.

Fifteen minutes until their back up arrives. Confidence bounces back and forth between them, and Jaskier hums under his breath as they start to move, finding the rhythm of their steps as they crash into the beast, the Wolf’s sword extended.

They feel the vibration of the roar it lets out as their sword severs tentacles, but apart from making it angry, it doesn’t seem to slow it down all that much. They circle each other, and Jaskier starts to find the cadence of the fight in the steps and the Drift, back and forth out of the way of reaching tentacles, the shudders as the screams fail to pierce the blocking they have running. They dance back and forth, and that’s what this is, a dance, of two graceful creatures trying to kill each other in the quickest way possible; it’s what Jaskier hates about the Drift. The violence that brought it into being.

But that’s a worry for another time as he and Geralt pull their arms back in unison, over their heads to bring the sword down again and again into the creature. The Jaeger’s left arm is caught, grappled by tentacles that wind round it and start pulling away at the casing. They try and pull back, but the thing is big and strong, and they don’t have the weight behind them to free themselves. Unable to use the sword, they’re reduced to punching into it with their free arm, ripping away chunks of flesh that get caught in the metal plates.

Then it screams again, and lets them go as they’re trying to pull free, turning its attention to Witch Eyes which has just arrived into the fray. 

Jaskier and Geralt steady themselves, and if this was one of Jaskier’s compositions, this is where drums and brass would pick up, maybe a key change as the tide of the battle turns back in their favour. He feels Geralt’s laugh through the Drift, and then catches a glimpse of the fight outside, and something, something starts to feel horribly horribly wrong.

They swing round again, arms overhead and bring the sword down into the creature’s back, watching as the other Jaeger takes great fistfuls of tentacles and hauls on them, sending the creature off balance.

Suddenly he can hear Geralt yelling at him through the comm, but he has no idea what his partner is saying, the creature in front of them is rising up to its full height, and suddenly he’s twelve again, playing with his cousins on the beach as the sky darkens and people start screaming. He tries to pull his arms over his head, tries to grab for his cousin, stood in the open, but just like all those years ago he never makes it as the monstrosity grabs her up with a blackened tentacle and he’s pulled away, screaming.

Someone is trying to calm him down, someone is trying to bring him back to the present, but all he knows is the terror of this beast looming over the beach, fear overriding the sense and he’s slightly more aware of a massive burst of flame spewing out of the Jaeger towards the creature.

He hears “Damnit Jaskier!” and in a brief moment of lucidity he realises that he’s just set fire to everything around them, including the creature they were fighting and Witch Eyes, but all he can really hold onto is the rage in Geralt’s voice, and he’s back at the training base the last time this happened, the second time they Drifted, that failed fight and Geralt berating him in front of everyone, calling him every name under the sun and cursing them ever meeting.

And this time, somehow, he gets himself free of some of the Drift gear, he can hear the alarms blaring all around them, Geralt screaming, but all he can do is curl up in a ball, still partially suspended in the harness, and try desperately to forget everything.

The next thing he’s aware of, he’s lying in a bed in the hospital ward, a couple of monitors attached to him, but no apparent injuries. It’s dark, and he sits up slowly, carefully, more so when he realises that Geralt is dozing in the chair next to him.

For once in his life, he has no idea what to say, and out of the Drift, he has no idea what Geralt thinks of him. After what he did, what little of it he remembers, he expects to be dumped and booted in one swift move.

He turns the monitors off before he disconnects them, and eases himself from the bed. Better to clear his stuff from their room before he’s told to leave. No reason to drag it out.

“Jaskier?” Geralt’s voice is thick with sleep, and Jaskier had been so busy trying to shove his books into a box that he hadn’t heard the door open.

He spins, book in his hand, and does his best to ignore the hurt look on Geralt’s face. “I’ll be out of here as soon as I can. I know you probably don’t want to hear it, but I am sorry I ruined your last chance at piloting.”

“Jaskier, what?”

“I mean at least you’ll be rid of me, and I can finally go back to the science corps and put this silly dalliance of being a heroic Jaeger pilot behind me. But I am sorry for what happened. Are Essi and Pris alright? I remember fire, so I assume I set off the Wolf’s Igni, which, I know you hate, and I’m fairly sure it would have caught them as well.” He’s rambling, he knows he is, but he’s starting to remember more of the fight, and gods, he rather wishes he couldn’t.

Geralt grabs his wrist as he tries to get past to the wardrobe, “They’re fine. All the heat shielding was improved on Eyes, you know that. Jaskier, why are you, what’s going on?”

Jaskier sighs and stops and looks at Geralt, sees the misery on his face, and winces, because he remembers that look from the last time something like this happened. “Well I expect I’m about to be kicked out of the Jaeger corps for breaking down in the middle of a fight and, gods, I broke out of the Drift didn’t I? How are you not comatose? And, well, I remember all too well what happened last time I ruined a fight for you, so, I thought, you wanted me gone last time, I suspect you want me gone this time, so I’m just packing what I have here, and I’ll be out your hair.”

“No, Jaskier, fuck.” Geralt pulls him to sit down on the bed. “You held the Drift, just. Enough for us to get back to base anyway. I saw, fuck, Jaskier, I saw what I did, what it did to you, and I thought you knew, since then, I thought I’d made it clear how I feel about you.” He holds his hand just shy of Jaskier’s face, wanting to touch, but not. “I think, maybe, I’ve relied too much on the Drift to tell you, but I love you Jaskier, not the fact that you’re the only one who can Drift with me, not the fact that you gave me the Wolf back. You. I love you, and I’m so sorry for all those things I said, I never meant them, but a part of me did, because I was raw, and angry and thought I was about to lose everything and I couldn’t say them to myself so I said them to you, and I have been trying since then to make you understand, but, fuck. I’m sorry. Looks like I failed at that as well.”

Jaskier shakes his head. “I can’t do this again Geralt. I love you as well, and I know what we both feel in the Drift, but I can’t cope with how different you are out of it. I think I know you, and then,” he just tails off, because he really doesn’t know how to do this.

“I’m sorry.” Geralt whispers, leaning in so his face is next to Jaskier’s. “You’re the only partner who ever tried to know me out of the Drift, apart from Eskel, and I’d known him since we were children, and I don’t know how to be me anymore. Not out here.”

“Then learn Geralt. Please. For whoever you Drift with next.”

“They’re not sending you anywhere Jaskier, you made a mistake, one that all of us make at some point. They’re not going to get rid of you, and I won’t let them if they try.”

He’s tired. And he hurts. And he wants Geralt to hold him and make this all go away, but he’s so scared that this is some kind of Drift hangover, or he’s still unconscious. “They have to reprimand me. It’s procedure.”

“Then I’ll be at your side while they do it.” Geralt promises him.

“You’re an idiot, Geralt.” Jaskier eventually says, looking up at him. “You’re an idiot, but I love you, and if we never make it back into a Jaeger together, I want to know you. Properly. Without the Drift.”

“I want that too. But we’re definitely getting back in a Jaeger.” Geralt replies, and kisses him, softly, carefully. “Put the books down, and let's sleep. Bad enough you escaped the ward, you need to rest.”

“Hmm,” Jaskier sort of does as he’s told, dropping the book onto the nightstand, and pulling Geralt back for another kiss. “Only if you’re sleeping with me.”

Geralt, still in his fatigues and boots, lets himself be pulled into bed, and does his best to chase thoughts of reprimands and him leaving from Jaskier’s mind.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/anon_blueberry) or [Tumblr](https://anonymousblueberry.tumblr.com/), I take prompts and have dumb opinions!
> 
> (There's 5000 words of backstory before they even meet, but I realised I was getting away from the point and running out of time, so I found a moment in time and wrote)


End file.
